WRC 4 FIA World Rally Championship

My honest reaction after a few hours with WRC 4 is that Milestone knew exactly who they were making this for, and unfortunately that crowd is pretty narrow. This is a point-to-point rally sim covering the full 2013 FIA World Rally Championship season, including the WRC, WRC2, WRC3, and Junior WRC support classes, all with official cars, drivers, and locations across 13 countries. The handling is the real argument for the game: assists can be toggled freely, so you can slide it between arcade and sim depending on who is in the hot seat. Powerslides and handbrake turns have genuine feedback, and the narrower road layouts added in this entry do a solid job of communicating the genuine danger of real-world rally stages. If you own a 900-degree wheel with an H-pattern shifter, the improved force feedback support makes this the most convincing the series had felt up to that point, even if some players still flagged weak force feedback as a lingering complaint. The career structure starts you in the Junior WRC class before working upward through WRC3 and WRC2 toward the main championship. Milestone shortened the early ladder rungs, which helps move things along, but the career hub itself feels dated: slow first-person menus, emails from your manager, and a service park where you repair your car and dial in setup between the six stages of each race weekend. The service park mechanic does add a layer of practical decision-making, since pushing hard and damaging your car early in a rally carries consequences for later stages. What is less forgivable is that of the 78 listed events, a significant chunk are the same base stages run in reverse or with minor variations, rather than genuinely distinct layouts. That shortcut is noticeable and frustrating when you realize it. On the multiplayer side, anyone hoping for Saturday-night couch carnage will be disappointed. There is no split-screen. The offline option is strictly hot-seat: players take turns setting times on a stage, alone, then compare. Online lobbies allow up to 16 players in ranked or unranked matches across single stages, full rallies, or a championship format, but everyone races the same stage simultaneously without staggered starts, so interaction is limited to ghost cars on course rather than actual wheel-to-wheel action. For group play, that format deflates the energy fast. A known sound bug affected many players after finishing a stage, sometimes requiring a full game restart to get audio back, and Milestone's post-launch support history suggests it was never fully addressed. The visuals were middling for 2013 standards and look firmly dated today. Environments are functional but textures are muddy, crowd models are rough, and the cars themselves hold up better than the scenery does. Audio is a mixed point: the co-driver pace notes work, which matters most, but engine sounds and ambient effects underwhelm. The variable daylight conditions introduced here are a genuine positive though. Running a stage at sunset with no minimap and nothing but pace notes to guide you adds real tension that the game occasionally delivers on. Bottom line for who should actually buy this: if you are a pure rally fan, own a proper steering wheel setup, and want a game that respects the WRC license without gymkhana distractions, there is a functional sim buried here. If you want something to throw on with friends, something with energy and spectacle, or something that will impress anyone new to rally, look elsewhere. The handling is the best part of WRC 4, and unfortunately the rest of the game is built around reminding you it could have been better.

Riley · Scout Team

Sports & racing

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